Archivo de la etiqueta: design for commercial spaces

Today’s consumers have more retail choices than ever and the need to be innovative is nothing new. Retailers have to keep and capture the customers interest by continually develop a new retail experience.

Retailers can use a lot of different techniques in order to invoke the feelings and senses that will move your customers’ to a purchase. Using either scent, light and sound marketing to stand out from the normal visual and auditory advertisement, is a known trick in the retail industry, but a new interior design called SpacEmotion that combines all tree techniques is now out on the retail market.

The Danish design company Diffus Design is the business that has taken it a step further in order to satisfy today’s customers’ needs of a constantly changing retail experience. Diffus Design is a design company and consultancy based in Copenhagen, Denmark, founded by Michel Guglielmi and Hanne-Louise Johannesen. Together they have created the award winning interior design SpacEmotion.

SpacEmotion is easily transformable and configurable system of textile discs that have been embroidered with conductive yarn to generate different outputs including light, sound and scent. Through a combination of 3 marketing strategies instead of one, SpacEmotion gives your retail store the possibility to create unique customers experiences, as the customers’ senses are invoked by three different techniques.

The key potential of the combined scent, sound and light marketing for your brand is that your store can draw customers’ attention and make it stand out from the rest by evoking a positive sensory experience. SpacEmotion gives the possibility to keep offering new retail experiences and maximize the opportunity to provide the right atmosphere to motivate and attract customers.

If you wish to create a memorable experience, Brandcelona retail consulting can advise you on the highlights to design a flagship store. Do not hesitate to contact us at info@brandcelona.com to study the best alternatives and plan how to carry them out in your business plan.

In order to present projects related to commercial space design and teaching, we will count with the collaboration of teaching professionals who will discuss projects and exercises in the context of retail strategies. Today we are pleased to introduce a text of Rebecca Mason, multidisciplinary designer and collaborator with Josep Ferrando and Marc Guitart of the International Master in Interior Design for Commercial Spaces at IED Barcelona.

This past winter, the Masters Class of Interior Design for Commercial Spaces at IED Barcelona thoroughly explored the function and structure of a tired commercial passage on Av. Diagonal in Barcelona. A three month exploration and dissection of this space resulted in a number of surprising and innovative ideas, all very relevant to the current social and economic climate in which we currently live.

More importantly though, behind these functions lied great conceptual insight into the motivating forces that drive commercial activity and design. The students found themselves trying to create a space that provided the user a place to escape, or a way to find themselves. Recognizing that individuals represent a unique layer in a bigger picture, the spaces dealt with the desire to offer consumers something special, and more importantly something personal.

When faced with the task to come together as 19 unique designers to represent all of their projects in one temporary installation, the Masters Class really rose to the challenge. If trying to combine 19 different concepts into one wasn’t hard enough, they also had to complete the project within 4 days. After a rapid brainstorming session, it was clear that the main concern of the students was to create a space that would be interactive and that would change throughout its short lifespan. The students really internalized these desires, and finally agreed that they would create a passage that offered the user the chance to create their own entrance and exit, their own path, and finally the opportunity to tell their story along the way.

The final installation was named, Pass / Post and was literally constructed from brown packing paper and string: basic, no-frill materials that represented the desire for simplicity and a blank canvas on which to leave a mark. Pass / Post was a 7.7m x 4.4m rectangular ‘passage’ that was filled with a complex web of string that stretched from the ceiling to floor, creating an impossibility to pass through the space in a straight line.

In order to attract their target audience up to the top floor of the building where the project was installed, the students laid a ‘cutting path’ along the ground starting from the exterior street all the way to the installation. Along this ‘cutting path’ the students placed their own faces, combined with a word that they felt signified their personal projects. These words enticed the viewer to continue along the path, as they finally came together to form an abstract sentence, provoking both thought and intrigue. The students also created small fliers that they left around the school, and also a promotional video that they posted on Facebook ahead of time, utilizing both print and social media to create exposure.

All in all the project was an interesting experiment on spontaneous and creative integrity. The message was loud and clear, ‘cut your story’, and definitely resulted as a reflection of a number of individual personalities. Those who interacted with the space offered inspirational quotes, exclamations of frustration, and one fashion student even created a garment for an imaginary warrior princess. One thing was certain, however, this being that everyone who participated left with a smile on their face, and most said ‘thank you’ as if they were happy to have received the break from their daily routines. As the space slowly transformed, the exterior walls began to fill the interior space, creating a complex yet inspiring atmosphere, offering that ‘escape’ that the students desired to create.

“Let’s not forget that the little emotions are the great captains of our lives and that we obey them without realizing it.” And it’s through this process of moving across, under, over or past something on the way from one place to another that a story is created… cut your story, Pass / Post.”